It’s all Changed

I have my paycheque deposited to Line of Credit (LOC), this was great as it allowed me to remember that it wasn’t really mine. Until I was consumer debt free it belonged to the LOC. With this in mind, I then planned my budget monthly and it worked. It didn’t matter when I got paid as it would all come out in the wash.

Now that my LOC is in the black I want to use my paycheques as I have them and not overspend. This is where it gets interesting. My variable spending is fine but I’ve been front loading all my bill and saving payments. If I continue with this I would pay all my bills with my first paycheque but not have any funds for general living e.g. groceries.

With this in mind, I took a look at when my bills have to be paid and allocated them in my weekly spending. I’ve adjusted a few so that I will be paying them later in the month. It’s interesting because my May 26th paycheque will cover the first week and a half of June while my June 9th cheque will take care of everything else.

This new order means that I need to begin incorporating my monthly bills and payments into my weekly budgets in order to not use money I don’t already have. It now adds an additional step as I get paid every other week but that’s not consistent in the sense that I can’t count on the second and fourth Thursdays being ‘my day’ or the 9th and 26th. Though that’s how bill payments come out. As of this month I’ve stopped my savings from being automatic since I’m saving 40% of my income. I’ll start manually moving those over when it makes the most sense so I’m not concerned about a shortfall.

I’ll test this system out in June and July and see how it goes for me. Here’s how it looks for this month:

June 1 – 3

% of paycheque

% of income

Netflix

0.91%

0.46%

Donation

0.61%

0.30%

Investment**

3.66%

3.66%

B’day Dinner

1.83%

0.91%

June 4 -10

Cell phone

12.20%

6.10%

Car Insurance

7.01%

3.51%

B’day Dinner

4.27%

2.13%

Groceries

3.05%

1.52%

Gas

2.44%

1.22%

Vacation**

9.15%

4.57%

Life **

2.44%

1.22%

Car**

9.15%

4.57%

Home Reno**

16.77%

8.38%

Gifts**

6.10%

3.05%

House Insurance**

3.66%

3.66%

Medical**

1.22%

0.61%

Emergency Fund**

6.10%

3.05%

June 11 – 17

Life Insurance

10%

5.18%

Groceries

3.05%

1.52%

Bunny

2.44%

1.22%

Misc.

1.22%

0.61%

Eating out

0.61%

0.30%

Phone & Internet

7.32%

3.66%

June 18-24

Wine Tour

3.66%

1.83%

Groceries

3.05%

1.52%

Father’s Day

9.15%

4.57%

Mortage

24.39%

12.20%

June 25-30

Groceries

3.05%

1.52%

Family BBQ

12.20%

6.10%

The way it breaks down is that I use 91% of my first cheque and 59% of the second one right now or 81% of my entire monthly pay. Seeing it listed out this way helps me greatly as it’s far more detailed than my original weekly budgets.

** denotes the various savings lines that I have.

Do you have any tips you would recommend?

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

Post navigation

2 thoughts on “It’s all Changed”

One word: SPREADSHEET! Hahaha. As long as you can keep track of all these figures and moving things around. Even if it doesn’t work out, with a good spreadsheet it will be valuable data to see where you can improve. I’ve mentioned before that I average everything out into a monthly sum (annual bills /12, monthly bills x1, weekly petrol and groceries x4), then divide that sum by how often I get paid. That goes straight into a “household” account. It sounds like you are doing something similar. I don’t have any concerns which is pay week because I know I would have accumulated enough in the the household account whenever the bills arrive. The only time this would be an issue is in the very beginning, eg: first month doing such a budget and not saved any money yet and have a $1000 insurance bill. But since you’ve got savings, I think you’re covered. Does that sound right? Or have I missed something.

I love Excel! You’re totally right, I think my mental issue is coming from the bills as this is a more detailed way of tracking. I’ve got money saved for the big ones but I don’t want to rely on credit for a couple days until my next paycheque for the little ones.
I suppose i also don’t want to get complacent and start overspending.